January 2010

The classically-trained players of the Real Vocal String Quartet have lost it. As can be witnessed on their debut eponymous recording and in concert, they bang on their violins, stomp their feet, and allow African trance music to influence their take on old timey standards. It's not their sanity that's missing; what RVSQ has lost is the ability to abide the constraints of either the old school classical world, where musicians must frequently forsake their creativity for the overall sound of the orchestra, or the often unapproachable reaches of the contemporary classical world. “There is a perception that ‘new music’ for classically trained musicians needs to be difficult or inaccessible,” says Dina Maccabee, a violist in the group. “We are all totally into challenging ideas but we also like pop music. And we feel like just because you have a highly trained skill set doesn’t mean you need to play obscure music.” Their simultaneous singing and stringing—a barrier buster in itself—may just be the perfect combination for straddling these musical worlds.

Irene Sazer—an original member of the acclaimed, genre-bending Turtle Island String Quartet—founded Real Vocal String Quartet, but is swiftly moving to make the new endeavor a collective one, a mode that flies in the face of the soloist- and conductor-centric classical world as well as the frontman-centric rock band universe. “There are many neuroses that come with being a classical violinist; perfectionism among them.” explains Sazer, who’s a regular fixture in the San Francisco Bay Area’s classical, jazz, and American roots music scenes. “Often in the pedagogy, there’s a real meanness. There’s a good and a bad, a right and a wrong. You succeeded, you failed. It’s a very restrictive box that I’ve been working on breaking out of my whole life. One of my goals and needs in life is to create an ensemble where there is room for everybody both personally and creatively. Key to that is ample room for exploration.”

Inside that space the all-female Quartet embraces the influences of four radically diverse musicians, who've cut their teeth individually on every kind of string playing from Balkan and circus-klezmer to West African and bluegrass. The Quartet is rounded out by Alisa Rose, violinist and fiddler extraordinaire, from49 Special and Picasso Quartet, and cellist Jessica Ivry who has been heard on a hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno and playing with jazz vocalist Nneena Freelon among other things. Sounds and songs inspire the Quartet from every which way. All four players add their mad improvisation skills and vocals to the mix.

The diversity of the four players’ experiences reverberates through their new album. For instance, “Talking Strings, Talking Drum” imitates on Western strings the totally unique sound of the African talking drum. “I find myself most fascinated and soothed by rhythmic texture these days,” said Sazer. “I was listening to these intricate rhythmic sections and the scintillating vocals of African music.” “Talking String, Talking Drum” exemplifies the breadth of influence in the group as well as their desire to work outside the norm. The Quartet makes use of the talking drum in an undeniably unconventional way and it works beautifully.

“Kothbiro,” the jaw-dropping first song on the album was composed by Ayub Ogada, a Kenyan artist who’s known for entrancing vocal melodies accompanied on his nyatiti, plucked lute, on Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records. In Irene Sazer’s meticulous arrangement, the Quartet sings Ogada’s lyrics phonetically—just as his cult following audiences did on his rare U.S. performances—without speaking the language, and their violins, viola, and cello transform as they take on the swirling and rhythmical melody of his lyre.

The Quartet’s global influences run through their music, often sneaking into unexpected places like the group’s take on the bluegrass standard “Kitchen Girls.” Dina Maccabee was digging deep into the roots of Americana when she wrote this song. She’d been taking fiddle lessons and wanted to push this song beyond the typical groove expected in a bluegrass tune. Meanwhile, she’d been listening to “Amassakoul” by Tinariwen, a musical group from Northern Mali’s Sahara. Tinariwen are known for their invigorating fusion of trance with electric rock guitar. “I was looking for something that was more unexpected,” Maccabee recalls. “So while looking for a way to play ‘Kitchen Girls’ in a new way, I found this kind of groove from Tinariwen. That’s how my musical life works. There are always these different influences.”

“We’re playing all these Western classical instruments and we are all like Jewish girls,” Maccabee laughs. “But there is something about that combination… It’s a little bit trance and really rich in rhythm; if maybe more simple in terms of harmony. Things don’t move around a lot. The richness is in the timbres and the rhythmic element and we all want to explore that. Rather than a jazz tune with one hundred million chords which is a different kind of complexity. Strings and voice and hands and feet. It’s all about layers of sounds and the color of sound.”

West African rhythms aren’t the only global sounds to bounce across the quartet’s bows. Latin influences dance through songs like “Guitara,” a meter-hopping tune originally played by Sazer’s rock group. The group also found inspiration in Afro-Brazilian music. “Fontana Abandonada-Passatempo” is a medley of two songs from the pre-Samba era, written by Pixinguinha, a revolutionary flutist who changed Brazilian music when he helped turn the nation on to improvisational jazz music. Sazer scrupulously transcribed the songs for the quartet and wrote new solos for the cello and viola, a transformation from the piece’s original instrumentation. “It fits like a glove though. It plays easy,” Sazer explained. “Not that it’s all that easy to play.”

Though they are not hesitant to draw on their technical skill of transcription and arrangement, Real Vocal String Quartet is not locked into their conservatory-trained method. At every performance, including their studio recording for the album, they dive into the unpredictable when they play “Now,” a group improvisation that changes every time. No one, not even the person who initiates the piece knows what she is going to play, but that all changes once they get going. In the studio, tapping their feet on the hardwood floors at a house show, or bowing their strings beneath vibrant stage lights, Real Vocal String Quartet show their playful side conversing only with their instruments reacting to their moods, the room, the audience. They bounce rhythms and melodies off one another, gradually learning the moves of one another until they’ve built something entirely new, surprising even themselves. “Sometimes, it will get really funny and we have to stop and laugh. All of the sudden, someone will be playing some disco riff—something from the seventies.” Sazer laughed. “But we always turn it into something. We call it ‘Now’ at every performance, because it’s happening now, right now, in whatever place we are in.”

The Quartet’s tight bond is only helped by being an all-women’s ensemble. “I feel like I’m playing with my friends,” says Sazer. The fact that every member in the band is a woman is not entirely an accident. “Many of the groups we’ve played in the past with have been mostly male,” said Maccabee. “I think in some ways this could be in reaction to that. I think we just enjoy working in a space away from the ‘dudeness of band practice.’” More precious than their femaleness is the mutual desire to work together collectively and to explore string and vocal music.

Wherever they began individually, together, the players in Real Vocal String Quartet have gone somewhere entirely new. Their chemistry as a musical group has become a catalyst for a creative explosion. They’ve taken their classical and jazz training, and combined it with their talent and other forays for their debut album. African, Brazilian, Balkan, Bluegrass: they’ve stretched beyond the conceived limits of string music. It may seem like they’ve absolutely lost it, but it doesn’t take an expert to see that they’ve known where it was the entire time.

“To all the rock ‘n’ rollers of the USA, I’m coming in February, 2010!”—Bassekou Kouyate

On the sandy grounds near the Sahara of West Africa, where the ancient Malian Empire once flourished, where griots have, for generations, sang the praises of local kings and crooned stories of battles long ago, the unassuming musician Bassekou Kouyate stands plucking a small stringed instrument called an ngoni - the ancestor of the banjo. Amidst the urban landscape of Mali’s present day capital - Bamako, Kouyate is surrounded by members of his band who wear bluejeans and have ngonis strapped around their shoulders like electric guitars as they sit on motorbikes and cars while talking on cell phones. Like this cosmopolitan city scene, Kouyate’s latest album with his band Ngoni Ba—I Speak Fula—juxtaposes the ancient and the modern, seamlessly melding contemporary jazz, blues, rock, bluegrass, and pop influences with Afro-beat and the centuries-old musical traditions of the griots of Mali.

There is some poetic justice that I Speak Fula is the first release on the new label Next Ambiance, an imprint of Sub Pop! The Seattle-based Sub Pop! label was the original home to such legendary bands as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney, and has enjoyed more recent successes with such artists as The Postal Service, The Shins, Iron & Wine, Band of Horses, Flight of the Conchords, and Fleet Foxes. American audiences will have the chance to witness Kouyate’s innovative and rocking approach to the ngoni during his 47-date North American tour February through April 2010, joining in the first six weeks banjo pacesetter Bela Fleck’s “The Africa Project.” Kouyate appears on the title track of Fleck’s double-Grammy-nominated Throw Down Your Heart. Another Bassekou Kouyate North American tour is in the works for June and July.

It is no coincidence that Kouyate’s music has so elegantly merged with blues-based music. As is well known, American blues has its roots in West Africa, particularly around the Sahel region of modern day Mali. This sonic link became clear to Kouyate in 1990, when a friend who went to Mali in search of the origins of the blues, invited the ngoni virtuoso to play with noted American bluesman Taj Mahal. “I didn’t even know who Taj Mahal was,” Kouyate recalls, “and we had no language but music to communicate. He began playing and I joined in. When we stopped, Taj said: ‘So you already know the blues!’ but it was the first time I had ever heard blues. I was just playing my Ségu (home village) style, and it is the same music.”

Before this meeting, Kouyate had rarely heard music from outside Mali. Born into a family of famous griot musicians, he was steeped in the traditions of his local village, learning to sing its history. “My diet was all live griot music from the Bambara tradition,” he says. “When I was growing up it was rare to hear a radio, and in any case the only station that reached the village was Radio Mali, and they had no funds for, or interest in, playing music from outside Mali.” After his father’s passing, Koyoute moved to the regional capital Segu and began to accompany many talented singers, including Amy Sacko who later became his wife and is a vocalist in Ngoni Ba. Subsequently, in the mid-’80s Kouyate moved to Bamako where he began playing with kora (21-stringed African harp) master Toumani Diabate. Their deep musical and personal bonds, which have matured over the past two decades through the course of more than eight previous albums together, can be heard on Ngoni Ba’s latest recording, as Diabate adds to the polyrhythmic percussive plucking on several songs.

Like Diabate, Kouyate wanted to move beyond the traditions of his ancestors. “We are a new generation now. I can’t just do what my father and grandfather did,” Kouyate explains. Recounting a performance in 1985 at Bamako’s legendary train station venue—the Buffet de la Gare—Kouyate can pinpoint the decisive moment when he started to move along a distinct artistic path. “I was playing with Nainy Diabate,” he remembers, “and she was looking for a new sound, and I was looking for a new way to play ngoni. The old guys always sat down when they played, but when rock guitarists soloed they went to the front of the stage. I decided to put a strap on the ngoni, so when it was time for my solo I moved to the center and surprised everyone.” With this performance, Kouyate had not only established himself as a major innovative force in Malian music, but also intentionally brought the ngoni into the spotlight. “This is why I have struggled to create Ngoni Ba,” he says, “to put this instrument on the international stage. We don’t have to stay in back. That’s impossible.” Since the 1980s, Kouyate has continued to find new ways to play his instrument, creating a double picking technique as well as sliding and bending notes like no one before. Today, these developments have become standard practice for aspiring ngoni players.

By popularizing the ngoni, Koyoute has become its saviour. No longer was it relegated to the courts of elite rulers, but it was shown that it could be everyone’s instrument. Over the past two decades Kouyate has revived interests in the ancient ngoni by placing it in new and invigorating musical settings. After playing with Taj Mahal, Kouyate collaborated with fellow Malian musicians to create a jazz-inspired instrumental trio, in addition to participating in a number of projects that fuse ngoni traditions with global popular music: jam sessions with Bonnie Raitt and Bono, as well as the studio sessions of the late great Ali Farka Toure’s last album, Savane, and on Youssou N’Dour’s most recent recording, Rokku mi Rokka. Such directions have, as Kouyate says, “created quite a stir among traditional ngoni musicians. They began to feel that their instrument was being brought back to life. It was quite possible that the ngoni would have eventually died out, being seen as antique and only fit for museums.” Whereas before Kouyate, young musicians in Mali were primarily interested in playing guitar, this modern griot has inspired this country’s youth to re-discover the ngoni. Bamako is now home to over a hundred ngoni ensembles. With these developments in mind, Kouyate recalls, “it was one older ngoni player, Sory Kane, that said to me: ‘You’ve saved the ngoni!’”

Kouyate secures the survival of the ngoni by continuing to push its limits, exploring uncharted territory, and speaking to the next generation of players, ensuring that they will continue along the paths he has opened. Appealing to youth, Kouyate has incorporated the sensibilities of rock ‘n’ roll into his latest album. “For me,” Kouyate says, “rock ‘n’ roll means youth and dancing.” In 2007, during a concert in Portugal, Kouyate “really got excited” by the reaction of a young audience, realizing the potential of his music to connect with youth, as teenagers danced in the streets of Lisbon. “The new album was made with this young audience in mind,” he says, “It is for them that we have quickened the tempos on several numbers and added touches like the wah-wah pedal to bring more excitement.” “Musow,” a song dedicated to women, for instance, features wah-inflected ngoni improvisations over an up-tempo calabash and shakere groove.

While travelling along innovative paths, I Speak Fula also recalls the traditional role of the griot as a travelling historian. Referencing the victorious battle of Biton Coulibaly—the founder of the Bamana Empire—“Torin torin,” offers praises to this revered leader, celebrating his courage and dignity with a polyrhythmic picking party that includes one of Mali’s most talented kamele ngoni players, Harouna Samake. Singing the legend of Nce—the son of a Bamana ruler in the 1770s—“Bambugu Blues” infuses this age-old tale with contemporary flare, featuring a laid back soulful duet between Kouyate and the bluesy guitar of Vieux Farka Toure (son of Ali Farka Toure). Praising the great warriors of Mali’s past, guest Dramane Ze Konate plays a hunter’s harp on “Senufo Hunter.” “When Dramane Ze first came into record,” Kouyate recalls, “he was carrying an old harp that he played in 1960 for Mali’s first president, Modibo Ketia. Nobody in the studio wanted to touch it, because they thought it was too powerful.”

Kouyate also sees Ngoni Ba’s latest album as a deeply personal reflection, and a chance to educate his audiences. His wife inspired the song “Amy,” which speaks of her humility, strength, and generous heart, while “Saro” is a musical prayer dedicated to the memory of his late brother who died during the recording of the album. Moving across the emotional and philosophical spectrum, the up-tempo bluegrass-tinged “Ladon” reminds listeners to educate their children well for they will have an impact on Mali’s ability to progress.

Like griots of the past, Kouyate has garnered great respect by carving out a distinct identity for himself, while maintaining an awareness of the historical significance of his instrument. “The image I like,” he says, “is of the ngoni as the griot’s ID card. Even if there is a war going on and it is difficult to travel, a griot, with his ngoni slung around his back, was always allowed through, because it was known that he was going to play for a leader, and perhaps act as an intermediary for political negotiations.” Bringing the ngoni from the palace to the people, Kouyate represents a new kind of global griot; one who has travelled the world negotiating artistic alliances between the ancient and the contemporary, and, in the process, saving the ngoni with rock ‘n’ roll revelations and blues muses.

Riding in from the dusty plains of Texas with a fiddle under his arm, an accordion on his back, and a song in his heart, a Creole cowboy named Cedric Watson recently swaggered onto the Louisiana music scene. When this outsider burst into local saloons, first locals were taken back by his mastery of tradition and then by his ability to seamlessly integrate polyrhythms and grooves from beyond. Roping in the old with the new, L’Ésprit Créole, Watson’s latest album with his band Bijou Créole, captures the rich Caribbean, African, and European heritage that underlies Creole culture while galloping through an unexplored frontier.

“Everyone was saying, ‘Who in the hell is this kid?!’ Everyone was blown away,” recalls Lisa Stafford, the artistic director of the highly acclaimed Festival International de Louisiane. “Even though he was not from here in Lafayette,” she continues, “everyone just really embraced him and he made an immediate home for himself here. I would see him dressed in overalls at local Cajun or Zydeco dances and when he would walk up to a girl to invite her to dance, he would bow. He was just like an old country soul.”

Audiences quickly recognized the remarkable talents and down-home spirit of this 26-year old prodigy as he displayed his mastery of the traditional Zydeco and Cajun songbooks. They could not have predicted, however, that Watson would be responsible for re-inventing the sounds of Creole music. Infusing it with Caribbean and West African polyrhythms, this artistic outlaw breaks through the conventions of Creole music, while maintaining a deep respect for its traditions. So much so that the album was just nominated for a Grammy in the Cajun and Zydeco category. Watson’s previous self-titled album was nominated in the same category last year.

Watson’s own brand of Creole music is informed by his profound fascination for its roots as well as his passion for exploring its untapped possibilities. While the sounds of his musical mentors, great Creole musicians such as the Ardoin family, Edward Poullard, Jeffrey Broussard, Goldman Thibodeaux, James Adams, and other Creole forebears echo through Watson’s songs, his open approach to composition allows for a diverse range of influences to flood in. “I give a lot of freedom to the individual members of my group,” Watson explains, “Each brings his own musical and cultural influences to bear. So without much effort, we just naturally sound different than other Creole and Zydeco groups.” While drawing on reggae, jazz, blues, country, and soul, Watson acknowledges, “We don’t have to go hip-hop or R&B, like a lot of Creole bands these days. We grab the Creole essence that is already there and emphasize it more.” What could easily become a stampede of musical mischief, in other words, is corralled by Watson’s sensibilities; his old country soul tastefully balances modern elements with the relentless revival of the music’s authentic connection with the past.

Revealing the source of Watson’s enthusiasm for Creole history, this album is, in part, an autobiographical tale of his own eclectic family lineage. “A lot of my ancestors were Spanish,” he remarks; “They were isleños, islanders. My great, great, great grandfather, for instance, came from the Canary Islands (located between Spain and Northern Africa) to join the Spanish and Mexican army in fighting off the German settlers in what is now Texas. Not only were some of my ancestors Black slaves, but some were also Native American and French.” As a teenager, while visiting his relatives in Louisiana, Watson was captivated by a radio show out of the town of Jennings that was entirely in French (“Even the McDonald’s commercials were in French!”), so he tape recorded it and brought it back to Texas where such programs were rare. Experiences like this fueled his fervor for Zydeco music, Creole culture, as well as his exploration and expression of the complexities of his own identity. For instance, although his parents never spoke Creole, Watson has made a concerted effort to re-discover his own roots, learning to sing in Creole and French, as well as English. With polyglot panache, Watson recounts his experiences of drinking, dancing, and flirting at a legendary saloon in Lafayette, Louisiana on the laid back, swaying song “J’suis Gone á la Blue Moon.”

Deeply aware of the African contributions to his own identity and Creole culture in general, Watson, along with his ensemble, produce poignantly polyrhythmic grooves, melding West African hand-drums with the playful punctuations of drumset and percussion patterns inspired by African diasporic musics. Throughout L’Esprit Creole, the band’s percussionist, Zydeco Mike, soulfully scrapes a rubboard, ratcheting up the rhythmical intensity of several tunes, in addition to performing on bongos and African drums. Bringing his passion for Rastafarian culture to the mix, Mike’s infusion of reggae can be felt on the laid back lilting “C’est La Vie,” as he adds hand drums to the triangle and accordion and vocal melodies of Watson, giving the composition a sound like Bob Marley in the Bayou. “Hand-drumming is something that you don’t see a lot of in Zydeco,” says Watson. “As soon as an audience hears these drums they are going to think of the Caribbean or Africa.”

Joining this prodigious posse is also drummer Jermaine Prejean who adds funkified syncopation, jazzy cymbal work, and an element of Carnival-style samba. Together with bassist Blake Miller, the two provide the band with a rock-solid, heavy-swinging foundation, while country blues rustles through the performances of multi-instrumentalist Chris Stafford. His soulful Rhodes playing along with bluesy guitar riffs shine on “Le Sud de la Louisiane.” Stafford’s steel guitar textures on “Cher ‘Tit Cœur (Dear Little Heart)” give this waltz a melancholy honky-tonk flare as Watson sings about heartbreak and healing, telling listeners to free their minds of their past problems. Expanding Creole music, Watson includes horns on several of his compositions. On “Zydeco Paradise,” Josh LeBlanc’s trumpet and the saxes of Tim McFatter and Will Henderson provide a staccato accent to this funky hootenanny.

While striding along new sonic trails, Watson’s love of traditional Creole culture and music is evident throughout the recording. His use of the double-row Hohner accordion—with its “musette tuning and wetter sound”—is a nod to Creole roots. “One of my goals is to bring back the Creole fiddle and the double row,” says Watson, proudly.

His roots also show in his choice of material. “J’suis Parti au Texas” uses a traditional melody found by Watson on an old Alan Lomax recording from the 1930s, reworking it to tell a personal story of the singer’s journey to Texas and reconnection with his family there. Paying tribute to one of the legends of Creole music, “Grand Marais” is a re-interpretation of an old Dennis McGee tune that features a soulful fiddle duet over a two-step dance beat. Building on the artistry of his forefathers, Watson adds his own lyrics that speak about a woman being refused. Finishing off the album, Watson includes his arrangement of “Bluerunner,” a song originally composed by one of his heroes and mentors, fiddler Bebe Carrier. “I wrote a syncopated bass line that’s in unison with the guitar, and we did it with the whole band,” says Watson. Atop a gritty down-home shuffle that hints at a second line New Orleans street beat, Watson’s fiddle soars and shakes with Creole charm and brilliance.

Watson’s fiddle playing is not only remarkably tasteful and lyrical, but also novel. When asked if there are any other young African-American Creole fiddlers out there, Lisa Stafford replied, “none that I know of.” Speaking about this distinction, Watson recalls that when a friend introduced him to renowned Creole accordionist and singer Goldman Thibodeaux, “It brought tears to his eyes, because he was so happy to know that there was still a Black fiddler out there keeping the music alive.” Watson also tells the story of Amédé Ardoin, the first person to ever record Creole music. “One day Ardoin was playing at a white party and a girl wiped his face. The men didn’t like that so they beat him, ran over him with their truck, and beat his hands with a sledge hammer,” recounts Watson. “It was a hate crime. I play in honor of him and all the people that came before me.”

Connecting Creole cultures of the African and European diasporas with their counterparts in the Americas, L’Esprit Creole offers a sophisticated revival of the multi-ethnic roots of Cajun and Zydeco music, presenting a culturally relevant re-invention that is as much fun as it is profound. While paying tribute to his musical forefathers, Watson, a Creole cowboy with an old country soul, has earned a reputation as an artistic outlaw who forges a path into a new frontier of Zydeco music.

For seven years globalFEST (www.globalfest-ny.org) has been the springboard festival for world music artists on the brink of North American national main stage success, performers known in one community but ready to cross into others, and the marquee stars of tomorrow. globalFEST 2010 showcases French Gypsy jazz with breakbeats, cumbia-fied downtempo Argentine club sounds, soul-stirring Colombian roots, new generation Louisiana fiddling, Africa unplugged, Irish traditional song, Senegalese roots reggae, Central Asian avant rock, Romanian hybrid blues, New York salsa upstarts, and a Gwo-ka master from Guadeloupe all under one roof at New York City’s Webster Hall (125 E. 11th St.) on January 10, 2010 at 7pm. The 2010 festival includes four U.S. debut performances and another NYC debut.

Tickets are $40 (www.ticketmaster.com or by phone through World Music Institute box office: 212-545-7536*). Buy tickets early, as prior globalFEST shows have sold out in advance.

globalFEST offers different musical styles to suit the variety of people attracted to the event. Traditional music enthusiasts will find appeal in Nightlosers, Cara Dillon, Cedric Watson, La Cumbiamba eNeyé, and La Excelencia. Rock and electronic aficionados will be attracted to Caravan Palace, Namgar, and Federico Aubele. Lovers of singer-songwriters will fast become fans of Alif Naaba and Meta and the Cornerstones. The French gateway continues to play an important role in bridging global artists to American stages giving France strong representation on globalFEST’s stages including Nguyên Lê’s Saiyuki and singer-percussionist François Ladrezo.

The festival—which has presented over 75 artists since its inception in 2004—is buoyed by a renewed sense of the United States’ place at the global table in the wake of Barack Obama’s election to president, confirmed by his recent Nobel Peace Prize. “This year’s globalFEST looks towards a new sense of internationalism and accessibility,” says Isabel Soffer of World Music Institute, who along with Bill Bragin of Acidophilus: Live and Active Cultures and Shanta Thake of Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, direct the annual festival. “The U.S. is being re-embraced by the world,” says Bragin. “There is a reinvigorated interest in artists trying to connect with the U.S. market.”

As always, the three festival directors seek out artists that may be discoveries or even revelations for their audience, a mix of music fans, and performing arts professionals—including concert presenters, agents, managers, artists, labels, and press—on the lookout for new talent. “We continue to bring several local U.S. based bands as well as international ones, some smaller bands that may be easier to tour in clubs and cabarets, and other larger groups for major festival markets,” Thake explains.

Webster Hall’s three performance spaces mimic the spectrum of venues that concertpresenters use nationwide: a large main stage with balcony, a medium café-style space, and a bar with a packed, standing-room-only dance floor. This environment leads to an unusual night of musical madness.

“Global citizenry continues to be a priority for many nations and particularly France, and what better way to raise awareness of each other’s cultures than through music?” says Emmanuel Morlet, Musical Attaché at the French Embassy, the festival’s founding sponsor. “From increasing understanding to the real economic role the festival plays for emerging French and Francophone performers, now more than ever globalFEST plays a great role in connecting people across political boundaries.”

globalFEST finds the balance between pragmatism and idealism. “Each year we build on previous years’ successes by bringing artists from North America and abroad that we think have the strong potential for viable tours. But we never lose sight that these are representatives of the incredible cultural riches of the world that will likely influence people in ways we can’t even predict,” concludes Thake.

globalFEST is a volunteer-run co-production of World Music Institute, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, and Acidophilus: Live & Active Cultures. Support for all seven editions has been provided by The Cultural Services of the French Embassy with additional support from the French Music Export Office, recognizing France’s pre-eminent role as a hotbed of global music activity. The globalFEST media sponsor is WNYC Radio. globalFEST is presented in association with Bowery Presents. Visa services are provided courtesy of Tamizdat. Publicity services are provided by rock paper scissors, inc. François Ladrezo & Alka Omeka are presented in association with the Anyway Organisation. Nightlosers are presented in association with the Romanian Cultural Institute.

Tickets are $40 (www.ticketmaster.com or by phone through World Music Institute box office: 212-545-7536*). Buy tickets early, as prior globalFEST shows have sold out in advance.

Note that the artist line-up is subject to change. Souad Massi will not be performing due to scheduling conflicts.

* Tickets remain $35 for WMI Friends, Public Theater Patrons, and APAP members by calling the WMI box office: 212-545-7536. Tickets can be purchased with no service charges, cash only, at the Mercury Lounge 217 East Houston Street, Manhattan, Mondays – Saturdays, 12 noon – 7pm.